Valavan Rajarajan - Project Portfolio

The block dates feature is facilitated by PersonnelDatabase and was implemented for general users as they cannot be expected to do duties any time during the upcoming month. They may have certain dates that are busy or do not wish to do duties and as such they can block the dates in the PersonnelDatabase.

Block Dates was done by adding 3 new commands to the Logic which are BlockDateCommand, ViewBlockCommand, RemoveBlockCommand. Modifications and methods were also added in Model and Storage to implement the blocking of dates in Duty planning and storage.

BlockDateCommand works like other commands in the Duty Planner. The command is read a text string from the MainWindow in UI. The sequence diagram for the interaction is below.

Step 1 :
As seen in the diagram above. The MainWindow calls the execute Command in Logic and passes in the command text, userName and userType of the logged in user.

Step 2 :
The LogicManager then passes the command text, userName and userType to PersonnelDatabaseParser and it determines the type of command by parsing the String input. Using certain command words, the PersonnelDatabase Parser determines what the command is and then passes the parsed commandText, userName and userType to the BlockDateCommandParser.

Step 3 :
The BlockDateCommandParser The BlockDateCommandParser takes in the dates list as a String and parses it into a Integer List which is used in the model. The BlockDateCommandParser then passes in the Integer List, userType and userName to BlockDateCommand. It checks for valid Integer inputs for days in the next month and will throw an exception if the dates entered are not valid

Step 4 :
The logic for BlockDateCommand follows the activity diagram below.

Step 5 :
The BlockDateCommand then passes the Integer List to the model where it is stored in a Hashmap in DutyMonth. DutyMonth has a Hashmap<Person, List<Integer>> blockedDays object to allow it to store the blockedDays of every person for the upcoming month.

Step 6 :
The algorithm for scheduling was then modified to prevent the user from not doing duties on their blockedDays. This was done with the assistance of the HashMap. During scheduling when a person is assigned to a day the model checks the list of blocked dates. If the person has a blocked day on the assigned duty, they are assigned a new one. Someone else will then replace them in the previously assigned duty. A more detailed explanation of the scheduling algorithm is in [Duty Settings].

Commands viewblock and removeblock` were added for the users convenience. This helps the users to find and modify the Blocked Dates for the upcoming Month. These two commands access the HashMap in the Model associated with blockedDates and either view or remove the blockedDates for the current user. The Hashmap uses a Person object as a key. The logged in user’s NRIC is used to obtain the current User person object and that is used as the key to retrieve the information from the Hashmap. All this is done through the model with methods such as getBlockedDates and `removeBlockedDays respectively for view and remove.

These two commands complete the suite of blocking which allows users to experience more flexibility in their duty planning. ==== Design Considerations:

Alternative 1 (current implementation): BlockDateCommand takes in a few dates they are then stored in the personnel database as a Hashmap.
* Pros : Easy to implement as a new Command. Parsers have already been set up in address book and adding a new command is relatively easy to implement. The command storing the Integer List in the PersonnelDatabase in a HashMap is also convenient for the other commands such as viewblock and `removeblock. ** The Hashmap allows easy referencing for these commands. The Hashmap also allows for easier scheduling when the scheduler is run.

Alternative 2 (current implementation): BlockDateCommand takes in a few dates they are then stored as a new Class called BlockedDates * Pros : Easy to implement as a new Command. Parsers have already been set up in address book and adding a new command is relatively easy to implement. Would be clear what the BlockedDate Class does and also if other forms of dates such as AppointmentDates have to be added in later this would help with integrating them.